Uncork the Forks: Local Wines Should Be on Local Menus

Local wine people — both inside and out of the industry proper — have long lamented how few local restaurants support and offer local wine. Short of visiting every restaurant and asking to see their wine lists, it is hard to know precisely who is listing local wine and how much of it. Visiting restaurant websites — many of which aren’t updated very often, rendering them largely useless — does offer some insight, though.

The results are still ugly, though there are some exceptions — restaurants doing good things with local wine. Some restaurants, like Love Lane Kitchen in Mattituck, even have an all-local list.

Maybe a future column will focus on some of the best local wine lists. Today, I’d like to share the experience I had in Manhattan over the weekend that makes Long Island restaurants that ignore local wine look even worse.

I bought my wife tickets to the opera for Christmas but picked a performance in late April near my birthday so I could justify some great eating and drinking before and after.

Most wine lists out here — with local wines or not — are pretty awful, so when I’m in the city, where lists are carefully compiled with unique, interesting wines, I take advantage. But I still notice the local wines on the list, and I came away impressed with what I found at both CraftBar, where we had a couple drinks before dinner, and Gramercy Tavern.

Lenn Thompson

Lenn Thompson, a proud Pittsburgh, PA native, moved to Long Island more than a decade ago and quickly fell in love with the region’s dynamic and emerging wine community. A digital and content marketing professional by day, he founded NewYorkCorkReport.com in early 2004 to share his passion for the wines, beers and spirits of New York State. Since then, the site has become the premier source for independent New York wine commentary, reviews and news.
Formerly the editor of the Long Island Wine Gazette, a contributor to Edible Brooklyn, wine columnist for Hamptons.com and regional editor for Appellation America covering the Long Island and Hudson River Valley regions, Lenn contributes to Edible East End, Palate Press, Patch and is the wine columnist for Dan’s Papers in the Hamptons.
Lenn is also on the board of directors for Drink Local Wine, and is the creator and founder of TasteCamp, a yearly regional wine immersion event for writers and bloggers.
An admitted riesling and cabernet franc fanatic, he’s intensely passionate about eating drinking local and the many local wine regions of America.
Lenn lives in Miller Place, NY with his wife Nena, son Jackson and daughter Anna.